New Hire Retention Trumps Productivity As Top Factor Driving Onboarding

Companies are recognizing that new hires require up to six months to make a decision to stay.

Managers must begin to build rapport early and to work with new staff members over a longer period of time to insure staff stability, new study indicates.

In the new benchmark report, "All Aboard: Effective Onboarding Techniques and Strategies," Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company found that while 86% of all organizations surveyed agree that it takes up to six months for a new employee to make a firm decision to stay with the company.

This process is called Onboarding and is taking on added significance as staff stability becomes an important management issue.

At the same time, 61% of all organizations either don't offer a formal Onboarding program or end their Onboarding program within just one month.

This benchmark report is a compilation of surveys and interviews from nearly 800 organizations globally and highlights how Best-in-Class performers are maximizing the value of their Onboarding process to improve new employee retention, reduce time to productivity and enhance employment brand.

"Onboarding is not a nice-to-have, it's a need-to-have," said Kevin Martin, Research Director, Human Capital Management at Aberdeen.

"100% of organizations that achieved our Best-in-Class status improved year-over-year new hire retention as compared to a mere 4% of all other organizations. The need to retain new hires and enable them to more quickly perform productively in their new capacity and environment has never been more pressing and is forcing organizations to look beyond traditional new hire orientation programs and towards formalized Onboarding strategies," Martin said.

The study also found that Best-in-Class organizations with respect to Onboarding are more likely to:

* Begin Onboarding before the start date of employment * Ensure the Onboarding process is at least six months for select stakeholder groups* Extend Onboarding to all new employees, including those coming from mergers and acquisitions as well as those who have accepted internal job transfers* Make 'socialization' into the organization's culture a key focus of the Onboarding process

Furthermore, the report sheds light on the usage of technology to achieve Best-in-Class performance in new hire retention and productivity.

"For the most part, Best-in-Class prowess lies in their organizational capabilities and supporting processes," said Jayson Saba, Research Associate at Aberdeen's Human Capital Management practice. "However, more than two thirds of our Best-in-Class are automating all or parts of their Onboarding process, compared to 45% of Laggard organizations."

In addition to providing insight into what Best-in-Class companies are doing, this report also offers recommended actions that all companies can take to impact the perception and experience of prospective candidates and new employees via effective Onboarding.